Since no good deed goes unpunished, Patricia Muscarello sued the Winnebago County Board, the County Zoning Board of Appeals, and some County officials, (along with several affiliated companies that operate wind farms), to challenge the ordinance as a taking.

The courts and the defendants were left scratching their heads with the same question: What's her damage?

Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner described Muscarello as a "pertinacious foe of wind farms" and her lawsuit as a "blunderbluss of federal and state claims." Muscarello is concerned that a business will build a wind farm next to one of the three tracts of agricultural-zoned land she owns in the county, and worries that a wind farm would damage her property in a variety of ways, such as:

Some of those feared harms are potential side effects of wind farms. Some are conjectural. But, since none of these harms have come to pass, the Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of her suit.

Muscarello merely challenged the procedure for obtaining permission to build a wind farm. The Seventh Circuit noted that harm caused by a change in the procedural rights of other landowners is too remote to count as a deprivation of property.

According to the appellate court, "At worst, it raises the spectre of some future deprivation; and the due process clause does not protect against spectres."

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U.S. Seventh Circuit features news and information from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which hears appeals from U.S. District Courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. This blog also features news that would be of interest to legal professionals practicing in the 7th Circuit. Have a comment or tip? Write to us.